Jamie Samuelsen, co-host of the “Jamie and Wojo” show at 6 p.m. weekdays on WXYT-FM (97.1), blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. You can reach him at jamsam22@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter @jamiesamuelsen and read more of his opinions at freep.com/jamie.

Where does Opening Day rank on the Detroit sports calendar?

Friday is the single best sports day of the year in Detroit.

Sure, bigger things may happen. Saturday will be much bigger than Friday because of Michigan’s trip to the Final Four. And Monday will trump them both if Michigan beats Syracuse and advances to the NCAA championship game.

But you can’t count on a Final Four trip every year (even though Tom Izzo made it seem that way for a few years there). The Pistons haven’t made the playoffs since 2009. And the Red Wings streak of 21 years of making the postseason is very much in question as the season winds down later this month.

But there are certain days that we can count on every single year in Detroit. And here are the top five.

1. Opening Day.This is the singular sports holiday of the year on the calendar. It seems like there are far more people downtown who don’t go to the game than the people who actually have tickets. The best part of the day is that it never matters whether the team is a title contender like it is this year, or an A.L. also-ran like it was throughout most of the 90s. Although I’ll never forget 2002 when Matt Lawton hit the very first pitch of the home opener over the right field wall at Comerica Park. A lot of the optimism left the park rather quickly that day.

2. NFL draft. Some wise person once dubbed this the “Lions Super Bowl” because it’s the closest thing Lions fans get to a one-day celebration of their team and their sport. Much like Opening Day, hope always spring eternal on Draft day. Lions fans have gotten way too excited over the years about players like Joey Harrington, Mike Williams, Boss Bailey and Juan Roque (Trust me. They did.) They even sometimes buy into the prognostications comparing Lions picks to current NFL players. (Titus Young is going to be the next DeSean Jackson!)

Michigan-MSU football game. Michigan fans can say all they want about how Ohio State (or “Ohio”) is their true rival. Fine. I’m sure that’s true. But this rivalry consumes the state on a much more universal basis. Battle lines are drawn in offices, schools, restaurants and bars. And the anticipation builds for weeks and months. This past year with Michigan coming off a BCS game and MSU from a Big Ten title game appearance, the talk all summer was off the charts. Both teams stumbled a bit out of the gate, so the game lost some of the luster. But no game generates more talk, debate, anger, spite and arguing than this one does.

4. Thanksgiving Day.It would certainly help if the Lions could actually win this game, something that they’ve done just once in the last 12 years (A 22-14 win over Brett Favre and the Packers in 2003.) But even in the worst of those awful seasons, there is this bizarre sense of hope heading into this game. I remember that some people even thought the Lions had a chance to end their winless season in 2008 when the 10-1 Titans (featuring aspiring defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz) came to town. The optimism didn’t last. The Titans won 47-10. That only fueled the national call for the game to leave Detroit and rotate around the rest of the NFL. But we’d never allow that to happen. Never.

5. First spring training game. We love Michigan. We choose to live here. Some of us will never leave. But let’s face it. The winters are the worst. So along comes late February and along comes that first radio broadcast from sunny Florida where the Tigers are playing the Yankees or the Braves or the Reds. There’s just something about listening to baseball on the radio while the snow slowly starts to melt. You can almost hear the sunshine. And of course you can’t mention the first spring game without mentioning the annual tradition of Ernie Harwell reading “The Turtle.”

Honorable mention: Detroit Grand Prix (Belle Isle) Great Lakes Invitational, The Crim (Flint), Opening Day for firearm season, Day one of the NCAA Tournament.